Desperate Hopes
by FreeDaChickens
Summary: [Abandoned] AU. No HBP. Hogwarts is separated from the rest of the wizarding world. No problem for Harry, 'The Chosen One,' and the rest of the Golden Trio. Go back to the Founders' time? No problem. Work with the Slytherins? Now they've got a problem.
1. Prologue

**Full Summary**: Hogwarts is separated from the rest of the wizarding world when an incomplete ward falls during a battle between the Death Eaters and the Order of the Phoenix. To fix this, Harry, his friends, and his former enemies must work together to attempt to get help from the Hogwarts' Founders themselves. AU, seventh year, HBP disregarded, Pre-slash.

**Disclaimer**: Sadly, Harry Potter is not mine. Everything in here belongs to JK Rowling, except the plot, which I can claim as my own.

-------------------------------------------

The room is white. White walls, barely visible above the spotless floor, under the pristine ceiling. The board is in the centre, flanked by two simple white chairs.

The board, at first glance, is simple black and white chequered. At second glance, notice is taken the unusual shapes of the 'squares': rectangles, triangles, circles. The black and white slowly turns to gray; the larger area outside the board is seen. A steady stream of faint white sand flowing peculiarly through the board, visible clearly to only one of the players. Infinite boards, immeasurable spreading out from the board, are seen clearly only by the other player.

The two players face each other, both ageless, both determined. The woman is beautiful beyond mortal comprehension, in comparison, the man is merely average. Two players facing each other. Not playing each other, not working against one another, but merely playing.

"I do believe it is your turn." A strand of hair is gently swept aside by an unseen hand as the woman comments.

The man replies calmly, "And how could you be wrong?"

The slightest hint of a laugh from the other player. "That still remains to be seen, as you very well know. Regardless, if we must sit here playing, one would be pleased if you would move."

"So impatient, aren't we? We have all the time in the world, as you very well know."

"Beyond the world. Now if you can go?"

"Anything for you." Smiling slightly; a flick of his wrist, and the dice, previously unseen, roll. A two and a five. A seven pieces move at random. Not pawns, for no one is a pawn in the game of life, but rather players. For what are people but players in the theatre of life?

"And now I can draw." With those words, a neat pile of cards appear, just in time for the woman's hand to take one. Flipped over, the card reveals a moving cloud across a dark sun. Bordered with unreadable gold symbols, the card is examined closely by both.

"I think you need to roll again." The words, formerly calm and cool, now are edged with uncertainty.

"If you say so." The reply comes, like her answer, slightly perplexed.

The dice are thrown again. This time two ones come up. Snake eyes, devil eyes. A laugh from both.

"Of course! Why did we not see it before?" They share a moment of laughter before the man flicks his hand. The sand flowing through the board stops suddenly, and slowly begins to build up. The woman claps her hands together, as if in delight, and the board on the table slowly separates from the other, infinite boards.

----------

A universe away, three teenagers sat in a silent dorm, watching a large parchment spread across the floor. Occasionally, one of them stood up and walked to the window, rapidly conveying the scene outside to the other two.

The parchment was a large map of their school; the three teens are the Saviour of the Wizarding World, The Boy Who Lived, and his two friends, all destined to fight for the Light and overthrow the Dark.

The scene outside showed a fierce battle, marked by the overwhelming presence of black robes and white masks, but interspersed among them, wizards wearing blood red robes fight just as fiercely. One figure, tall, black, and imposing stood, marked by an empty circle around him, keeping the red figures at bay with casual flicks of his wand, taunting, teasing.

The three teens, impatient, angry, and grieving, watched as their teachers fell back, pushed ever closer to the castle.

"Sinistra's up against McNair now," the boy at the window dully reported. The other two looked up quickly before locating her on their map.

"I wish there was something we could do to help!" the girl exclaimed, frustrated. "All we're doing is watching them lose!"

"I know, Hermione, I know," the third member of their group consoled her, patting her shoulder comfortingly. "We're did all we could. It's out of our hands now."

The first boy came to sit by the other two, watching silently, tension expressed in every line of his body, brushing his messy, black hair out of his eyes annoyed.

The room was silent once more as they all study the map. Suddenly the black haired boy looked up, eyes out of focus, concentrating.

"What's wrong, Harry?" the girl asked, alarmed.

"Something's happening. I can feel it."

The other two sat quietly, straining to hear something. On the very edge of their hearing, barely perceptible, they could hear a sound, like the tearing of paper.

"I hear something!" the two exclaimed excitedly.

The boy shushed them quickly. Next thing they know, their school jerked, and blue light washed over everything.

**A/N**: Aaaand . . . that's all folks! End of the prologue. This idea has been hanging around for quite awhile, and I'd be very much obliged if you, my wonderful reader, told me what you thought of it by leaving a review. Even a simple "Good" or "Awful" will do (but long reviews are even better! hint hint). Many thanks to my PI (Perfect Imagination) beta XxTheGreyLadyxX.


	2. Beginnings

**Disclaimer**: Everything relating to the world of Harry Potter is the property of JK Rowling's. Anything aside from her writing – currently only the plot – is mine.

--------------

Harry came to seconds later. He was lying on the dark red rug in the Gryffindor boys' dorms . . . why? Then he remembered the flash of blue light and the castle shaking. He jumped to feet quickly and silently, drawing his wand as he went. Looking around cautiously, he ran over to where his friends lay, slowing waking up.

"Ron, Hermione! Get up!"

"What was that?" Ron queried, sitting up groggily. "What happened? Hermione, are you alright? Harry?"

Harry, relieved that they seemed fine, asked, "Do you know what happened?"

Hermione looked at a loss for words. "I d–don't know," she said, shaking slightly. "Something in the battle must have happened . . ."

At the mention of the battle, Harry rushed over to the battle and stood shocked at what he saw. Without a word, he ran to the open door and down the wooden stairs as fast as he could. Upon reaching the common room, he yanked open the door and searched the room. Frightened eyes gazed up at him questioning. All the students were still there from where McGonagall had sent them for safety.

Reassured by the sight of all of the students, Harry answered their queries, unconsciously assuming his role as protector, "We don't know what just happened, but we're working on it. For now, everyone stay here. Neville, make sure no one leaves." After seeing Neville's scared but determined nod, he returned to the dorm to answer Hermione and Ron's questions.

As soon as he opened the door to the dorm, he was bombarded. "Why'd you leave? What's wrong with the map? Where did the Death Eaters go? Is everyone safe?"

He held up his hands in an effort to ward off all the questions. Hermione and Ron, taking the not-so-subtle hint, subsided slightly, but still stared up at him anxiously.

"I left to go make sure everyone was still in the common room and no one was hurt. No one's hurt, so that's all good. I don't know what happened to the map or the school or the Death Eaters; I was hoping you might know, Hermione," Harry finished, looking hopefully at Hermione.

Satisfied with his answers, she sat down on Ron's bed once again to think. "I think it had something to do with the reason why Professor Dumbledore had to leave yesterday."

Yesterday, a message had been sent to Harry telling him that the Trio's advanced training lessons that they had been taking from Dumbledore, Moody, and the occasional Auror was cancelled because Dumbledore would be leaving the school for a short time. No reason was provided (as Hermione said, "We're only students. You can't expect him to tell us everywhere he's going!"), and they didn't know how long he was going to be gone, either, beyond "a short time."

Ron summed it up, "So all we know something happened during the battle. It pushed all the Death Eaters out of Hogwarts' grounds, but it put a large blue barrier between us and them, and a blue line shows up on the Battle Map."

The Battle Map was similar to the Marauder's Map. Created with Remus' help, it showed the grounds of Hogwarts in more detail, the names of everyone, and the health status of anyone on the grounds. The Trio used it to watch any battles on the ground they couldn't partake in.

"Are all of the teachers outside?" Harry absentmindedly asked, pacing around the room.

Hermione retrieved the map from its resting place on the floor and replied after a few minutes studying it, "Yes. They're all unconscious, though." After a short pause she finished shakily, "And – H-Harry, I think it killed two of them."

"Who?" Harry demanded, as he stopped and looked at her shocked.

"Snape and Vector," Ron replied unsteadily as he looked over Hermione's shoulder at the foot of his bed.

"Professor Snape and Professor Vector, Ron," Hermione corrected, even with her in shock and them deceased, the teachers had to have respect.

Shaken by the death of his teacher – even his most hated one – and another of the Hogwarts' staff – admittedly one he had never really known – Harry sat down on his bed abruptly, staring at Ron. He absently traced the red and gold thread on his bedcover, trying to take it all in.

"Harry, we should probably go see what we can do to help," Hermione suggested gently, running her hands over her black robe, trying to keep herself calm. "Madam Pomfrey's in the hospital wing. We can see if we can help her, and she can let us outside of Hogwarts." The Trio had been forbidden to enter the battle, and to prevent accidental student injuries, wards had been put up to protect all the students from leaving Hogwarts that only teachers were keyed into.

"Yeah, that's a good idea," he agreed, anxious to do anything. He bounded to his feet and walked out of the room, composing himself as he went. Ron got up quickly, and, stumbling over one of the boys' shoes, followed, accompanied by Hermione.

Walking quickly through the common room, they ignored all of the questions, only pausing briefly by the red armchair Neville was in to reaffirm Harry's earlier command. With his assurance, they continued onward, through the portrait hole and the darkened hallways until they reached the brightly lit Hospital Wing.

They entered the white, sterilized rooms and almost immediately saw the matron standing in a closet filled with potions and medical supplies.

"Madam Pomfrey, can we do anything to help?" Hermione asked quickly, sounding hopeful.

"What are you doing out-of-bounds now? Well, I suppose you did see what happened. Very well then, you can help. I'm going to need to take everything on that table," she gestured to a large table by the front of the room covered with medical supplies, "down to where the teachers are. Don't levitate any of the potions, Weasley!" she ordered as Ron prepared to levitate them. "You need to separate the potions from the non-reactive medical supplies first. Miss Granger, you should know how to do that. Sort these out first, and then Mr. Weasley, you and Mr. Potter can take them down. I have to finish gathering up supplies." And with that, she bustled off into her office, muttering about records.

Hermione, with Ron and Harry's help, quickly sorted the supplies. Everyone took as much as they could carry or levitate, just as Madam Pomfrey came back out, levitating more supplies. Without a word, she strode out the door and down to the Entrance Hall, the Trio following.

They reached the hall in little time and quickly walked out into the cold night air. Hermione shivered as they walked out, and Ron wished he had thought to bring a cloak. They continued heedless, trying to see where the teachers lay.

The first teacher they came upon was Flitwick. Not far from the doors, he lay under a tree breathing shallowly. He was unconscious and had several cuts on his arm and a nasty looking hex on his leg, swelling it and turning it a dirty yellow. Madame Pomfrey stuffed her supplies in Harry's arms, almost overbalancing him, before kneeling down to attend to Flitwick. She muttered something under her breath and an overlay of his body floated up. Blue and yellow patterns swirled around it, with hints of purple around the edges of his leg.

"Miss Granger, you see the different colours? Red is critical, yellow is normal, blue is injured, and purple is less severe than red, but worse than blue." She then proceeded to show Hermione than incantation to create the image. "Mr. Potter, you can help me; Mr. Weasley, you help Miss Granger. Leave any hexes to me, but you can revive anyone with only blue or yellow status. If they're cut, you can apply the correct cream and bandage it. Charm stars to float above anyone you find so we can see them easier." She then turned back to Flitwick and proceeded to remove the hex, muttering under her breath the whole time. Harry stood to the side, feeling useless.

Hermione turned to search for the next teacher, quickly finding McGonagall. In worse condition than Flitwick, Hermione could only bandage the cuts on her arms and legs and put glowing yellow starts above her. Moving on, Ron trailing behind, she continued to look for the teachers.

Madame Pomfrey gradually made her way to all of the teachers Hermione had found, healing them as best she could before reviving them. Only Trelawney had sustained serious injuries, and Harry had floated her back to the Hospital Wing to be healed fully later. None of the revived teachers were any help, as they were all in shock, groggy, and seemed Confunded.

Hermione saw Professor Vector first. She had been helping so long, she had fallen into a trance. Find a teacher. Cast the diagnosis spell. Bandage any cuts. Get up. Find the next teacher. By the time she had found her body, it was only a few hours until dawn.

Not even noticing who she was at, Hermione had cast the diagnosis spell before frowning when it turned black. Noticing who the body was, she then screamed and jumped back. Staring wide-eyed at the fallen body illuminated by the glowing blue barrier, she stepped back slowly. Pomfrey came running when she screamed, and when she saw Vector, she grimaced sorrowfully. "I'm sorry you had to see this, Granger. I think it's time for you to go back. You too, Potter and Weasley, you've helped out a lot." All stunned by the body and still in shock from seeing all the aftermath of the battle, they walked dazed back to the dorms.

When they reached their dorms, the common room was empty and quite. They reached an unspoken agreement to remain down in the common room, as none of them wanted to separate to go back to their own dorms, where they would likely be faced with questions from their dorm mates.

Hermione conjured some pillows and blankets and they settled down on the overstuffed, comfortable couches for a few hours sleep. Ron held Hermione, who was still in shock from seeing Professor Vector, for comfort.

As they fell asleep, none of them had any idea of the confusion and disorder to come in the near future.

_A/N: So, how'd you like it? Please leave a review and tell me, a simple "Like it!" would do. If you don't like it, it'd be nice to know why, so tell me!_

_I know the main pairing in this story (it's with Harry – but I'm not giving it away quite yet; it's not going to come up until much later), but I don't have any preference on background pairings. If you recommend one to me, and it gets enough support, I'll try and put it in. Thanks!_

_Posted 3.12.06_


	3. Ravenclaws

**Disclaimer**: Everything is owned by the wonderful JKR, except for the plot and Kevin Entwhistle's personality (his name's still JKR's).

------------------------

It was so _frustrating_! Professor Snape had given up his life fighting for Hogwarts, yet she couldn't even grieve properly for him.

If only he had been less a – to quote Ron – "snarky, slimy bastard," then maybe –

She immediately retracted that thought as selfish, ashamed. He had given so much to the Order, _died_ for them!, and here she was, annoyed that he couldn't have been nicer.

Hermione sighed bleakly and turned back to her task, trying to find out what that blue barrier outside Hogwarts was. It was completely impenetrable; Ron, Harry and her had watched the teachers experiment on it. They had used everything possible to try and bypass it but to no avail.

In addition to completely trapping Hogwarts, it had also shut down the Floo connection.

Hermione smiled half-heartedly as she remember their discussion of the ward. She was so proud of Ron, for once he had actually remember it was impossible to Apparate on Hogwarts' ground. A foray down to the kitchens to see the house-elves – the poor, overworked darlings – had proven they couldn't go through the barrier either.

However, despite all her pride with Ron, it didn't change the fact that they were still at Hogwarts – with no foreseeable changes in that – without Dumbledore. She wasn't sure how much worse it could get.

She was sitting here in the first place not only because it was the Trio's unofficial duty to be involved with every happenstance of trouble within Hogwarts, but also because she figured it would help keep her mind off the decimation of the Order and the few casualties they had suffered.

However, researching didn't always occupy her completely. Especially at 11:30 at night when she was frustrated, exhausted, but determined not to sleep.

All she had found out so far was that wards rarely were able to completely block physical attempts to get through, especially from the inside; blue might mean the ward was either a safety ward of a time ward; and wards almost never glowed, and if they did it was for only several seconds.

_Basically_, she thought, frustrated, as she looked over her notes, _I've found every reason why that stupid, bloody ward outside _shouldn't_ work and almost none for why it does._

She groaned. It wasn't fair! She'd been looking for ages through the library's pitifully small section on wards, and all she'd found were reasons why the big, bright blue, glowing shield outside couldn't be there.

Maybe it was something of Dumbledore's, she thought hopefully. Well, it was either that or something from Voldemort, and she quite preferred the former.

Footsteps drawing near caught her attention. Who else would be in the library past eleven?

Figuring a student had forgotten an essay or book, she was surprised to see the ever-organized Padma Patil walking up to her.

"Padma? What're you doing here this late?" she asked, rubbing one hand across her eyes. Maybe she was a little more tired than she thought. She couldn't leave without finding something, though!

She started, surprised from her thoughts, when Padma began talking. "Madam Pomfrey sent me down here to check on you before I left –" _That's right_, Hermione thought, _she's working in the Hospital Wing now to help Madame Pomfrey_. Quickly turning her mind away from that unpleasant train of thoughts to catch Padma's next words, "—make sure you're not working too hard."

She grimaced slightly. Couldn't Madam Pomfrey see she needed to do this? But maybe . . . Padma was in Ravenclaw after all, and as much as she hated to admit defeat, Padma could certainly help her.

Deciding it couldn't hurt, she quickly replied, "No, I'm fine. Thanks for the thought, though." She paused, before slyly adding, "You wouldn't happen to know anything about wards, would you? It's just that I can't find anything on this kind . . ." she trailed off before delivering the final blow, "Oh, never mind. You won't get it; it's probably impossible anyway."

Padma fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Ignoring her conscience nagging at her for exhibiting such shameful Slytherin tendencies, she listened intently to Padma.

"Well, I haven't done much research myself about it, but Ellis Forsvare in his book _Shields, Wards, and More_ said– "

Hermione quickly interrupted, "I looked there, but it didn't have any information beyond basics, and nothing about the one I specifically wanted."

"And which one is that?" Padma, Hermione noticed, had unconsciously pulled out the chair opposite and sat down.

"No, don't tell me. You're researching the one outside?" Padma looked faintly suspicious.

_Damn_! She wasn't supposed to be suspicious, merely helpful. Hermione, thinking quickly, tried to reassure her, "Yeah. Er, I was trying to find out more information about it to, um, help the teachers. They were trying to find out about it yesterday, you know. If you want to see my notes –" she offered Padma the information she had already collected, "I've found quite a lot of material about other types, but nothing on the one outside."

Hoping Padma would take the distraction, she held her breath as the Ravenclaw took the proffered notes and scanned them quickly.

Reassured, Padma asked, "You think it's a ward? The Ravenclaws have a running bet about that. Personally, _I_ think it's a just combination of _Protegodiu _and _Puteulanus_."

Hermione, unwilling to be shown up by Padma, thought furiously for several seconds then said, "A _Protego_ sustained for a long time and . . . blue?"

Padma blushed slightly but steadfastly held to her position. "Well, everyone's so sure it's so complicated, but if you put enough power behind a _Protegodiu_ and turned it blue, well, wouldn't that be enough?"

"But that wouldn't stop a physical attempt to get through it!" Hermione protested.

Padma returned saying it could easily be combined with another spell; after all, whomever was casting it was strong enough to combine it with a frivolous enough spell; if they did that, why not go all the way?

This was countered with a disagreement by Hermione, and they continued to argue and trade ideas for the next half an hour. They only stopped when Padma glanced at her watch by chance. "Oh, it's past midnight! We were talking and I didn't even notice –" she stopped abruptly and narrowed her eyes at Hermione.

"You set that up, didn't you? Purposely asked me about your so-called 'impossible' ward. You knew I'd respond, didn't you? Well?"

Hermione smiled sheepishly. "Yeah, I guess. I needed another opinion on this, and when I saw you, I thought that you would have to know something, being one of the smartest witches in Ravenclaw." She smiled winningly at Padma while under the table she crossed her finger hopefully, praying Padma wouldn't be too mad at her for distracting her. After all, Padma was down there to make her leave.

"Flattery will get you everywhere, I guess, Hermione." Padma smiled. "It's a little late now, but I'll help you tomorrow. If you want, I'll see if I can convince Kevin to help – Kevin Entwhistle, you know him, he was in the DA last year – he's naturally good at shields and the like."

Hermione breathed a sight of relief. "Thanks Padma! That would be amazing! It's so stressful with, well, the teachers – " she took a breath to calm herself before continuing, "and Professor Snape, and . . ." she cleared her throat. "Well, any help would be great. You know Harry and Ron, they'll try to help, but they're better at duelling than actually helping with research."

Padma smiled before saying, "Well, if that's settled, I think we should both go back to our dorms. I'll see you tomorrow after breakfast, maybe? Since we don't have classes yet, I think I can convince Kevin to join us."

Hermione nodded, and both girls bade their good-byes as they left the library.

-------------------------------------------

"Hermione! It's good to see you again; we were just about to go searching for you. It's past midnight, after all," Ron called out from the armchair as Hermione entered the room.

"Sorry, I just got involved in trying to find some information. Thanks for waiting up for me." She apologized as she entered the portrait hole.

"No problem, Hermione. Did you find anything?" Harry asked curiously.

"No, but I did get the help of Padma Patil, and she promised to get Kevin Entwhistle to help, too."

"We'd love to help, you know that, right Hermione? But, well, it's not all that interesting, and I doubt we'd help much." Hermione raised her eyebrows, so Harry got to the point. "Well, we'd figure we'd be better at actually doing something, so we were going to go out tomorrow to look at the shield again," Harry finished, with Ron nodding his agreement.

Hermione smiled. "If you want. I'll be in the library, so if you find anything interesting, you can come and tell me. But I'm completely knackered now, and I think I'll go up and try to get some sleep." To a chorus of "Night, Hermione," she mounted the steps up to her room, pausing only to quickly change into her pyjamas and crawl into bed.

Thinking about the process she made with the ward and Padma, she realised she had forgotten completely about Professor Snape. As she fell asleep, she was unable to decide whether that was good or bad.

---------------------------------------

On weekdays and holidays, Kevin Entwhistle loved to sleep in, usually much past breakfast. His roommates despaired of his sleeping habits, but he had formed the habit while attending primary school and had no intention of changing.

He also happen to count any day when Hogwarts cancelled school as a holiday. Therefore, when his covers were rudely stolen from his bed at an absolutely unholy hour of the morning – it couldn't be past eight! – on a day he knew for a fact the teachers had cancelled classes, he was understandably less than pleased.

Turning away from the sudden source of light that must have come from some busybody opening his curtains, he was entirely unprepared for the cheerful voice that commanded him to get up. The feminine voice.

Padma giggled to herself as she watched Kevin first protest waking up and then become very alarmed when his mind slowly realised it was not one of his roommates but a girl.

"Bloody hell, Padma, it's not even eight! G'way! And you're not s'posed to be in here." She smiled at his weak attempts to shoo her off. And since when had her being a girl bothered him? They were such good friends, and she'd been in his dorm before.

"But it's such a nice day! The sun's shining –"

He interrupted her grumpily, "I know."

She continued, ignoring his input, "and I thought you might want to know that you are going to help Hermione Granger in about thirty minutes in the library."

"Yeah, sure, just let me go back to – what?" He woke up rather abruptly once he processed just what he had been roped into doing.

"I _said_ –"

"No, I heard what you said. But when was I going to find out about this?" He glared, but the effect was ruined by his jaw-cracking yawn.

"About five minutes ago. Why? Did you have anything important planned for today?"

"Yes, I was going to sleep 'til noon. Besides that, it's the principle of the thing. And Hermione? She needs help? She's even less likely to ask for help than one of us! Why would she need help?" Kevin pouted at the thought of all those hours of sleep he could have had if Padma hadn't rudely interrupted him.

"Oh, come off it! You were going to wallow around all day moping that Sally didn't go out with you." At this she grimaced slightly, unnoticed by Kevin, before continuing, "It's about the ward outside! I thought since neither of us had classes today, we could help her. She's done quite a lot of research on it, and you are the smartest Ravenclaw when it comes to shields, you know," she finished, batting her eyes hopefully before bursting out laughing at Kevin's hopeless look.

"All right, I'll get up. But you are going down to the common room, and yes, I will actually get out! Now, shoo!" He overrode all her protests and, finally finding his wand, charmed the door open and pointed at her as threateningly as he could while still in bed.

She laughed before heading downstairs merrily.

As disgruntled as he was at being wakened so early, Padma had brought up something interesting. He, like all the other Ravenclaws, was interested in the challenge the ward outside stood for, of course, but he wasn't likely to spend a whole free day researching it. Not even his fellow Ravenclaws spent beautiful fall days inside the library studying something outside class. Until now, apparently. _Thanks, Padma_, he thought sarcastically as he slowly changed into his robes. _And I was really going to convince Sally to go out with me today, too!_

But the small voice in the back of his head pointed out the likeliness of asking Sally out failing, while the challenge of solving something even the Gryffindor bookworm couldn't would provide a much needed ego-stroker. He ignored that voice though; if Padma was going to drag him out of bed before nine, then damn him if he wasn't going to be as surly as possible!

--------------------------------

Several hours later, he had completely forgotten his promise and was thoroughly enjoying himself. Not only was Hermione both very intelligent and fun to study with – Hermione wasn't nearly as stuck in the mud as he had feared – but she had actually found some good information, and she wasn't afraid to argue with everything he said. _She's a lot like Padma in that respect_, he mused to himself.

He started to tune out their conversation, _argument, more like_, before a book caught his eye on a near by shelf. _Advanced Runes Translations_. Ah, he remembered fondly struggling to stay awake through some of the stuffier parts of that . . .

Suddenly a memory struck his attention, and he nearly over toppled his chair trying to get out. With an "excuse me for a moment, ladies" to a very confused-looking Padma and Hermione, he manoeuvred his way through the chairs and stacks of books to return to his original table.

"This, ladies, is the proof behind all my, dare I say it, brilliant theories on linking wards and spells." Disappointed by their reactions--Padma rolled her eyes and Hermione only raised an eyebrow--he continued to flip through the book until he found the section he remembered.

"I fail to see how Translating runes is going to help us here, Kevin. We're dealing with spells and wards, not runes," Padma patiently explained, as if to a child.

Kevin merely shushed her. "Be patient, young grasshopper. All shall be revealed in time." He shoved the book towards the girls and pointed out a section. "There it is. The proof!"

Padma read puzzled, "'Certain runes have special healing powers that can be –'"

"No, not that section! Umm, it's the one right under it. Starts with 'A lesser known property of ancient runes.'"

Padma found the section and read, "'A lesser known property of ancient runes is their ability to link spells. Considered useless until the eighteen hundreds when Sir Olivier de Monague found the necessary . . . '" she trailed off, reading quickly to herself before turning to stare at Kevin. "This means that, as long as you get the potion and extra spell right you can combine unlimited amounts of spells? That's amazing! Why is it so unknown if you can use all this power?"

Hermione interrupted Kevin before he had a chance to answer, "You didn't read far enough down. Not only do you need the potion and spell, after you try to combine more than two spells, it requires either immense amounts of power from the caster or a specially planned ritual."

Kevin nodded. "And the potion looks horribly complicated. It requires all sorts of advanced preparations."

"So we've got two possible people who could do this alone, Dumbledore or Voldemort, but neither seems to have a good reason for doing it," Padma concluded.

They thought over that in silence for several minutes before Kevin looked down at his watch and realised just how late it was, and, consequently, that "Hey, it's lunch!"

Padma and Hermione both looked up, startled from their musings before shaking their heads in amusement.

"Just like Ron. Never mind that we're in a possibly life changing situation here, it's lunchtime!" Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Of course, Hermione, anything else is positively blasphemous. How dare you suggest it," Padma reprimanded sarcastically.

"If you ladies are finished complimenting my decision, I say we head over to lunch and continue our _terribly_ important research later. After all, we've been here for hours and a break would be nice." With that said, he stood up, closed his book carefully, and stretched.

"Well, we have been here for a while," Padma admitted. "I guess a break wouldn't hurt."

"Okay, but . . . Oh, I completely forgot! I promised to meet Harry and Ron anyway at lunch." Hermione burst out as the party headed for the library doors.

"I can see where having lunch would be a top priority, but surely you can manage to be apart from those two for over a couple hours?" Kevin questioned mockingly.

Hermione glared at him. "Yes, I think I could. However, I had planned to meet them because they were going to go outside and see if they could find anything unusual around the shield. I thought it would help to see if there was any obvious visual difference."

"Like runes, for example?" Padma suggested, catching on.

"Exactly."

"I was only asking," Kevin defended, slightly teasing.

"Well, next time, I'll leave you alone to wallow in your ignorance alone." She smiled, taking most of the sting out of her response.

With that cleared up, the three continued to make their way down to the Great Hall in comfortable silence, each contemplating their own theory about the mystery outside.

_A/N: And thus ends chapter three. Don't forget to leave a review to tell me what you think or to suggest a pairing._

_Posted 3.3.07_


	4. Impossible

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing; I have nothing. I'm only borrowing them temporarily.

----------------

Ron tried concentrating on his chicken, but he couldn't block it out. _Tap. Tap. Tap._ He took another bite before pulling the potatoes towards him. _Tap. Tap. Tap._

"Harry!" At Harry's blank look, Ron gestured to his hand. "Please. Hermione will get here soon. She probably got caught up in a book or something. You know how she is."

Harry nodded tightly and stopped tapping his hand but continued to stare at the door. Ron sighed. He couldn't blame Harry; after all, if Mad-Eye Moody had given him special Auror training all summer in addition to the school year, he'd be bloody paranoid too. But Harry just needed to relax sometimes.

He was distracted from his thoughts at Harry's grunt of, "Finally!" He glanced up in time to see Hermione, Padma, and some Ravenclaw bloke – Kevin something? – enter the Great Hall.

He stood up, beckoning to Hermione. She saw him, and the three walked quickly to the Gryffindor table.

"Did you find anything?" Harry asked eagerly.

Hermione laughed. "Yes, we did. Harry, Ron, this is Padma Patil and Kevin Entwhistle. Kevin and Padma,shouldn't Padma know Ron from the Yule Ball? They did go together, after all. Ron, Harry," she introduced, pointing to each in turn. "We think the shield's a combination of several spells and either rune or potion based. I was going to ask you if you found anything outside that looked different."

Harry replied, "Yeah, when we were near the border of the . . . thing, beyond the greenhouses. Ron saw it first, he can tell you better than I can."

All eyes turned to Ron. He swallowed his last bite before speaking, conscious of Hermione's constant scoldings. "Well, like Harry said, we were near the edge of the Forbidden Forest. We hadn't seen anything interesting –"

The Ravenclaw bloke – Kevin – interrupted, "Anything, or anything interesting?"

Ron replied testily, "We did see some grass, the Quidditch Pitch, and oh, yeah, a big, blue shield thing."

"I just wanted to make sure you didn't miss anything. Even the smallest detail can be significant," he preached. Ron rolled his eyes. Self-righteous git.

"We didn't see anything new or interesting," Harry amended for Ron. "Now, Ron, why don't you continue."

Ceasing his glaring at the bloke, Ron continued, "Anyway, as I was saying, we were at the edge of the grounds and hadn't seen anything inter – _new_. We were just walking around, trying to find anything, when I was passing one of the trees on the edge of the Forest. I was paying loads of attention, but something shiny caught my eye. I went over to see what it was and I saw them. They were some kind of runes, and they were outlined in silver. It was the silver that caught my eye, you see. I don't know what they were though. And that's it."

Padma, who had remained silent until then, asked, "Do you think you could draw them? It's great that you found them, but it doesn't do a whole lot of good if we don't know what they are."

Ron turned to Harry and shrugged. Harry spoke for both of them and said, "We'd probably get it wrong. Neither of us take Ancient Runes, so they don't mean anything to us. We could show you where they're at, though."

Padma turned to look pleadingly at Kevin, who sighed before saying, "Why not. Might as well, it's not as though I have a life or anything like that. But let's eat lunch first. Please?"

--------------------------

When Ron first found the runes, Harry hadn't known what to make of them. A few of them looked vaguely similar to the runes Moody had shown him; the ones that could make a protective shield.

When describing it, Moody had told him the multiple advantages of shields but also the abject uselessness of them. You had to know where you were going to have a fight, and once you set up the shield, you couldn't move outside of it or it didn't do you any good.

Despite the similarities, he had discounted the idea that the runes here were the same as the diagrams Moody had showed him. It wasn't supposed to be blue or glow, and it didn't stop physical attacks. The one here did all three. The other runes might make some of that happen, though. He puzzled on that before returning to look at the runes.

They really did look similar. If he tilted his head to the side, he could see the circle with the two little squiggly things sticking outside it, and the square with the cross through it connected to the circle.

Deciding it couldn't hurt, he pointed out what he saw to Hermione, adding, "But I don't know anything about the rest of them. It doesn't match anything Moody showed me."

Hermione, who had been kneeling on the ground with Kevin and Padma just outside of the silvery circle, rocked back on her heels. "Really? Because it looks like the circle and the triangle on the other side of it could be the rune for 'freedom.' It matches this author's interpretation," she added, pointing to the open book in front of her.

"Hermione, I know next to nothing about runes outside of what Moody told me. I'm just pointing out what it looks like to me."

Hermione nodded grudgingly before turning back to Padma and Kevin, quickly becoming engrossed in whatever apparently _fascinating_ thing Kevin had seen about the runes.

Harry sighed and turned to Ron who muttered something about 'too smart for their own good.'

Glancing around, Harry could find nothing interesting to do. They were sitting on rocks on the edge of the Forbidden Forest, with Hagrid's hut rising up above the vegetable patch. The Quidditch Pitch looked empty and forlorn, barely visible around the bulk of Hogwarts.

Thinking of Hogwarts brought up the uncomfortable reality of what was happening inside. It wasn't chaos – oh, no, the prefects and seventh years had more control over the younger years than that. The teachers hadn't been gone for that long, yet.

At first glance, everything looked normal. With a closer inspection, however, the tightly controlled fear, forced happiness, and slightly hysterical edge became known.

Everyone was determined to take advantage of the impromptu holiday while avoiding any thoughts of _why_ they had a holiday, avoiding any thoughts of the teachers currently laying in Hospital Wing still. Mentions of Snape or Vector were strictly taboo.

Turning his thoughts from this grim topic, Harry turned to Ron, who was sitting nearby on a dead tree stump, looking about as bored as Harry felt. Catching Harry's eye, he jerked his head up to the castle.

_Well, even the castle would be better than this,_ Harry thought. He grimaced but nodded.

Ron, understanding him perfectly, cleared his throat. "Hermione?" At the absentminded nod, Ron continued, "Harry and I are going to go up to the castle, okay?"

Hermione glanced up from her book long enough to nod and wave. Padma looked up, smiling and waving cheerfully; Kevin merely nodded.

As they trudged up to the castle, Ron turned to Harry questioning, "So. What do you want to do?"

Harry shrugged. He really didn't feel like doing schoolwork, they didn't have Quidditch practice until after dinner, D.A. wasn't scheduled until the next day, and he wasn't up to losing to Ron in a game of chess. Again.

"You wanna train?" Came the suggestion from Ron. "We may be cut off from the rest of the world, but Moody'll still kill us if we get out of shape."

Harry nodded. "Sure. You think Hermione'll mind if we practice without her?"

"With those abso-bloody-lutely fascinating runes out there and that ruddy ward?" Ron replied sarcastically. "My guess would be no."

"Thought so."

At which point, the conversation turned to lighter things: Quidditch, classes, and the likelihood of Megan Jones ever going out with Ron.

As they climbed the stairs to the seventh floor, they continued to argue about the last.

"All you have to do is ask her, Ron. What's the worst she could do?"

"How about reject me in front of everyone, embarrass me for the rest of my life, and let the twins know so they would tease me forever?"

"She wouldn't do that. I bet she'd even say yes. All you have to do is ask!"

"Yeah, yeah, Mr. I haven't had more than three girlfriends since fifth year."

"Hey, what can I say? I'm just picky." Desperately seeking around for another top, he picked one at random frantically. "Hey, you mentioned the twins earlier. How's their shop going?"

Casing a slightly suspicious but mainly curious glance at Harry for the abrupt change of topic, Ron thankfully picked up the thread of conversation. "Well, they've just added a new branch . . ."

Harry sighed quietly. He really didn't like talking about his love life – or lack of one, really. He just didn't feel . . . right with his previous girlfriends. They were all great, pretty, cheerful – with the exception of Cho – and smart, but he never felt right around them.

His train of though was cut off, along with Ron's chattering, which he guiltily realised he hadn't been listening to, when they reached their destination: the Room of Requirement.

They paced outside the wall, each concentrating hard. Their shoes slapped against the stone floor, echoing quietly as they walked. Finally on their third time passing the section of wall, a door appeared. Harry opened it and looked into . . .

An Auror's dream training gym. An enclosed area, mimicking a large room, perfect for duelling. Targets, set up for spell practice, near bookshelves filled with books about spells and duelling techniques. A track encircling a large pool, several machines that looked suspiciously like Muggle weight lifting equipment, even an obstacle course.

When Moody had learned of the Room of Requirement and its possibilities, he had been overjoyed. Finally, the perfect place to torture, er, train, his students.

The Auror training complex had most of the facilities – they didn't have a pool or Muggle weights – but they were spread out through the buildings and couldn't adjust at will.

Harry headed towards the track as Ron started changing for the pool. Shedding his robes, he pulled on a pair of warm-up pants and t-shirt to start jogging. Moody had workouts set up for all three of them – Hermione usually joined them – to do daily whenever he wasn't there. When he was there, which was about once a week, he pushed them as hard as they could go.

Harry could still remember his first training from the previous year, and not very fondly either. Moody had saved the first lesson for testing them, seeing how fit they were.

-----------------

_They arrived at the Room of Requirement and gazed in awe at the setting that met their eyes. Finally, finally, they were going to learn something worthwhile, and from the best Auror, no less._

_Harry glanced over to see Moody looking around in satisfaction. "Well, start warming up! We've got a long way to go," he barked at the three of them. They glanced around before easing themselves to the ground to begin stretching._

_Ten minutes later, Moody had stopped them and told them they were going to begin. "First off, we've got to see how good of shape you lot are in. Start with, oh, fifty push-ups."_

_An hour and a half later, completely exhausted, Harry, Ron, and Hermione fell onto the couches in the Gryffindor common room, taking pleasure in finally being able to sit down and not work. Moody had gone through as many exercises as he could think of until the three had nearly collapsed._

_If every workout was as hard as that, they weren't going to be able to survive the year. Harry voiced the thought to the other two, who merely nodded tiredly in response._

-------------------

If Harry remembered right, they had all slept_ very_ well that night. Thankfully, Moody didn't work them that hard every day, and they had quickly gotten in much better shape. Heh. Well, at least they were in fighting shape now.

The D.A. too. They taught most of the spell work, if not the physical exercise, to the D.A., which they had continued from their fifth year.

Snape hadn't approved of the D.A. continuing, but there wasn't anything he could do. Harry smirked as he remembered Snape's confrontation with the Headmaster. Even if he had come to a reluctant truce with the current potions master, mainly at Hermione's insistence, it didn't hurt him to see Snape put down by Dumbledore.

"Harry! You ready to duel?" Ron looked up questioningly at Harry as he towelled his hair dry.

Shaken from his thoughts, Harry stretched quickly before replying, "Yeah. I'm warmed up now."

As they proceeded to the improvised duelling area, Ron asked, "Do you want to work on Legilimency today?"

Harry grimaced but reluctantly nodded. "Working on Legilimency" meant that he would try to use Legilimency to predict Ron's moves while still duelling. It was the offensive tactic Harry was the worst at, the only one Ron could beat him at still. He just couldn't seem to get the hang of splitting his attention between attacking his opponent both mentally and physically. All the other techniques Moody had introduced to Harry, he had picked up easily, all except this one.

It was necessary, though, as much as he hated it. Moody told him that almost all of the higher up Death Eaters could do it, so he'd have to get better at doing it and its counterpartner, maintaining Occlumency shields while fighting.

Ron and he faced up across the room, separated by several chairs and a table. Moody had insisted on the imitation room; he said that they would very rarely fight in an empty enclosed ring so many other duelling rings looked like.

They didn't bother bowing; Ron simply shot a jinx towards Harry and the fight began. Harry lost himself in the motion of the duel, accustoming himself to rhythm. Once he got the rhythm, he began the tricky part, continuing to fight while separating his mind.

_Come on. I can do this. Breathe in, out. Calm down. _And . . . there. He had it! He could see himself continuing to fight against Ron, if a little slower than he would normally do, and he could feel his body in the back of his mind. He concentrated on that odd feeling and found he could override instincts and still control it from here. Wherever 'here' was. Ron seemed to notice his slightly slowed movements and was eyeing him warily while maintaining his side of the duel.

He _willed_ himself to Ron and slipped into through a crack in Ron's natural shields. This was what Moody had talked about! He could feel what Ron was going to do next. There it was . . . his next spell would be . . . he could barely see it . . . _Incendio._ Damn, too slow.

He cursed as he 'read' it too late. Ron had already sent it towards his body. Continuing to watch Ron's mind, Harry could see the spells going through Ron's mind. Adjusting to the pattern, he was able to read one of them . . . a stinging hex aimed toward his right side . . . before Ron cast it. He made his body dive behind a chair to the left a second before Ron sent the spell and sent a _Stupefy_ before Ron could react. Harry was forcibly ejected from Ron's mind seconds before the _Stupefy_ hit Ron.

Rubbing his head, disoriented, Harry sat up, trying to get used to the sensation of having an actual body again. He glanced over at Ron's fallen body and hastily cast a _Ennervate _in his direction.

Ron sat up and looked around blearily. "Oh, sorry, Harry. You moved pretty fast at the end there, wasn't expecting it."

"Ron, I did it," Harry interrupted.

" – want to try aga – what?"

"I did. It worked. I used Legilimency and was able to keep fighting," he repeated.

Ron looked positively alarmed. "_What?_"

"I kind of separated myself from my body and I could tell what spell you were going to send at me before you sent it."

"But – what about – but," Ron spluttered.

"What's the matter? I finally got it to work right, didn't I?"

"Yeah, well, that's the point isn't it? Blimey, I wish Hermione was here. She'd know what to do."

"Do about what?" Harry was starting to get annoyed. He'd finally done it; Ron should be happy!

"Well, the thing is, mate, what you just did isn't supposed to . . . well, it's supposed to be, um, be impossible. Here, why don't you cool down, then we'll go see Hermione and see what she knows about it, 'kay?" With that, Ron practically sprinted over to the track, anxious to avoid any angry questions such as "Why was I doing it, then?" or "Why didn't you tell me?"

Harry followed Ron slowly, trying to process what he'd been told. It was impossible? Then why had Moody told him – lied to him! – and said it was possible? And all the higher Dark wizards knew it? It was impossible? Then how had he done it? Had he done it wrong? It didn't feel quite like Legilimency did. But then again, he wasn't great at Legilimency. But if that was the case, why hadn't Moody told him that way to do it?

It was impossible? _Avada Kedavra_ was supposed to be impossible to survive. He groaned. This was going to be another thing that set him apart as the bloody Boy Who Lived, wasn't it? Just his luck.

Ron, stretching close by, looked up apprehensively at the groan. "Uh, all right there, mate?"

"Yeah," he said shortly, "just a thought." It was impossible? Why hadn't Ron told him? Hermione? They had obviously known.

They left the Room of Requirement in an unspoken agreement to find Hermione. Harry's thoughts continued to circle. It was impossible? By why . . . It was impossible? But how . . . It was impossible? It was impossible?

It was impossible? But maybe . . .

It was impossible? Well, not anymore.

_A/N: End chapter four. Don't forget to leave a review: tell me what you think or suggest a pairing._

_Posted 4__.26.07_


End file.
